


A Spark of Hope

by rollyjogering



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: #CelebrateBenSolo, Ben Solo Lives, F/M, the post-tros fluff we deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23718595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rollyjogering/pseuds/rollyjogering
Summary: If there was one thing that was absolutely true about Ben Solo, it was that he was never afraid.He’d faced down the Praetorian guards on Snoke’s Star Destroyer, cut down the Vader cultists on Mustafar, and had come together with Rey to defeat the Emperor on Exegol.He had nothing to be afraid of.And yet in his life, one could count two incidents that struck fear in his heart: when he ceased to feel Rey in the Force, and when his child was about to be born.__Written for the #CelebrateBenSolo event up on twitter! Go check out the tag to find works of art and writing that celebrate the life of our favorite good boi, Ben Solo! <3
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	A Spark of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! 
> 
> As stated in the summary, I wrote this as part of an event that celebrates Ben Solo living happily post-TROS. I don't own the characters/the universe but if I did, IX would have definitely gone a whole other way. But all that aside, I hope you enjoy this little one shot of baby daddy ben solo! I know I enjoyed writing this! I hope you enjoy reading it too. 
> 
> All the love,   
> rollyjogering   
> (@punkbitchreylo on twt)

If there was one thing that was absolutely true about Ben Solo, it was that he was never afraid.

He’d faced down the Praetorian guards on Snoke’s Star Destroyer, cut down the Vader cultists on Mustafar, and had come together with Rey to defeat the Emperor on Exegol.

He had nothing to be afraid of.

And yet in his life, one could count two incidents that struck fear in his heart: when he ceased to feel Rey in the Force, and when his child was about to be born.

Ben Solo had never been more afraid in this moment for the two most important people in his life.

It was nerve-wracking, not being able to be with Rey as she went into labor, so he took to pacing around the room, unconsciously wearing the carpet down.

It was already a difficult pregnancy to begin with.

Rey had been plagued by very frequent spells of nausea and vomiting, and more often than not, food did not sit in her for longer than a few hours.

Like the fighter she was, she’d insisted that she was fine, but all Rey’s reassurances could do nothing to still Ben’s nerves whenever she would keel over and retch, or when he wouldn’t feel her close to him at night, and find her, instead, hunched over on her side, clutching her belly from pain.

The few people whom he’d known, who had been around his mother at her pregnancy, had told him the same had happened to Leia, and rumors were that his own delivery had taken between hours and three days.

Ben could only imagine what his father felt at the time, Han Solo never being one to show his emotions that easily. He’d probably shrugged off the hours and put on a brave front for others. But to others, like Chewie and Lando, he would’ve shown how truly worried he was all those agonizing hours of not knowing how Leia and their child were doing.

At the thought of his parents, Ben stopped his pacing, and finally walked towards the chairs in the room. He took one, and sat down, his legs weak and tense at the same time.

No matter how fraught his relationship was with his parents, he’d wished they were still around to meet their grandchild; to see Rey as their own daughter. Instead, he could offer no family to Rey but himself, he thought sadly.

But before the vicious thought could cut at him any longer, Chewie barrelled into the room and made a beeline for Ben, immediately enveloping him in a hug that Ben practically disappeared into.

He had no strength to wrestle away, but he didn’t want to either, relieved that someone could finally drag him out of his panicked thoughts.

When they parted, Ben gave a quick nod to Chewie, and thanked him for being there.

“Where’s the rest of the gang?” he asked, trying to get a look behind Chewie at the door.

Chewie yowled out in wookie, and Ben nodded again, taking note that the rest of their friends were soon to come.

While true that he’d made peace with Rey’s band of resistance friends, it had taken a while for their interactions to turn less frosty, as Finn, Poe, Kaydel and Rose weren’t quick to forgive him for all the grievance he’d caused the galaxy.

And he couldn’t blame them. Not when they protested his relationship with Rey, not when they argued that Ben should undergo trial, not even when he was sentenced to exile for a maximum period of 10 years.

And in those long hours away on Tatooine, when he felt like he would never leave, it was the thought of becoming a better person, for Rey, for her friends, for the galaxy that kept him going.

Of the four, it was Rose who reached out to him first, penning him a sternly-worded letter full of ferocity and a begrudging extension of an olive branch.

They’d gone back and forth for a while, with Ben telling her about his life farming on Tatooine, and Rose of the ongoing rehabilitation of the galaxy, but on the sixth month of their correspondence, Ben received not one letter, but three: a letter each from from Rose, Finn and Poe, and Kaydel.

Ben had served his time for eight years, and had gotten off early on good behavior. In all that time, he’d been writing to the four, and had received visits from Rey for eight years. By the time he’d returned to Coruscant, it was unrecognizable to him, but for the six most important people, and wookie, in his new life.

Not long after his status as a free citizen was granted, he and Rey decided to make their home on Naboo, keeping contact with the five, even as they were gone to a different system.

At his and Rey’s swift reunion, it was with all their time finally together after all those years apart, that Rey and Ben had conceived a child.

And it was why Ben was now sitting in the waiting room of the medical facility, awaiting the safe delivery of his child.

When the rest of his friends had arrived, Rey was already entering her 13th hour of labor, and Ben was even more frazzled, his hair sticking out where he’d run his fingers through it.

Seeing that he was in distress, Rose came to sit beside Ben. She tenderly placed a hand on his back and patted him.

“Ben, it’s going to be fine. Rey is going to be fine. The baby is going to be fine,” she repeated like a mantra to him, helping him regulate his ragged breathing.

Ben looked up at Rose gratefully, smiling in return. “Thank you,” he breathed out gruffly, his throat scratchy from disuse.

Not long from then, a medical droid wheeled into the room to announce that Rey had finally, finally—after 13 hours, 25 minutes, and 37 seconds—given birth to a bouncing baby girl.

A girl!

And at this news Ben almost barrelled into the droid as it granted him his much-desired access to Rey and to their daughter.

When he saw Rey, he was struck once again by how beautiful she was, how beautiful she looked after 13 life-threatening hours of childbirth. How rosy her cheeks were, freckles dazzling in the light. And how her hair down sent the blood flowing straight into his heart.

“Ben,” she croaked out, voice hoarse from strain, but it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

“Rey.” He rushed to her side and as he caressed her face and her hair, a laugh bubbled from his throat. “Rey!”

As Rey and Ben laughed and cried in joy, unable to stop touching each other, marvelling that they had found each other in this lifetime, had created life, a nurse came towards them, holding a small bundle in her arms.

Rey and Ben parted, and the nurse placed the baby girl, swaddled in a cloth, into Rey’s waiting arms.

And when Ben turned to look at her for the first time, the fear struck his heart once again, but with it a stroke of love. As she looked up at him, with her dewy skin, and her small, brown eyes, and her tiny face, he was afraid, but this time, not out of any painful sort of fear. Instead, he feared how much he would love her. His child. His daughter.

“What should we name her?” Rey looked up at Ben, tears fresh in her eyes.

And before he knew it, the name left his lips. “Basilah.”

“Basilah?” Rey’s eyebrows quirked up. “What does it mean?”

“Fearless,” Ben whispered, his hand coming to rest on their baby’s chest, her heartbeat like little drumbeats—signals of life.

“Basilah Solo,” Rey tested the name on her lips. “I like it,” her lips quirked up.

And at this hour, when the night sky was turning to dawn, when the birds were beginning to stir in their nests, it was as if the entire galaxy couldn’t sleep. For a baby girl was born today, and with her birth came the signal of the changing times—of peace and prosperity, of purpose, of balance in the Force, and in the galaxy.


End file.
